Category Archives: Living in London

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Brent Cyclists and David had organised another bike ride out of London and I join again. And this time Ann joined us as well 🙂 She only started cycling after she moved to London so it was great that she was now up for trying something longer.
The weather looked decent (typical London weather – it wasn’t really sunny or really cloudy but somewhere in between that made it really comfortable for a bike ride).

Ann, Chris and I took the tube to North Harrow were we met the other cyclists. We were a group of 12 in total as we headed off into the suburban sprawl of north west London.

We mostly drove on quiet streets and through a couple of green areas with more or less clever ways of making us get of the bikes and duck, crawl or lift our bikes over obstacles.

We were getting hungry as we got Windsor on the horizon. With the goal in sight we made a last stride to our designated pub in Windsor for a well deserved meal and a pint. Ann was reaching her limits but for a first bike excursion 32 km is very impressive.

After the refueling the rest of us continued back more or less in the direction we came. With a stop for tea (and ice cream) in Langley Park. Before making it back to Uxbridge were most of jumped on the tube to take us home.

I was planning on working Friday but the weather seemed pretty nice so instead I jumped on my bike and went into town to checkout the event that was The Royal Wedding.

As I made my way towards the city center I came across a couple of pubs and cafes that had TVs set up for patrons to follow. There should have be some 6000 street parties across UK and 800 in London and I came across one of them – still empty as people were watching the ceremony at home.

By the time I reached Hyde Park the ceremony in Westminister Abbey had finished and I got to see people cheer and wave their flags as BBC broadcast from the park.

After that I tried to see how close to The Mall I could get but it was all full and closed off for more people. Instead I went to Trafalgar Square were huge crowds were gathered to watch the two big screens there.

The Norwegian in the front of the last picture with the traditional dress might even be the same as Tina Omme i London spotted later by Westminster Abbey.

After that I headed east along Embankment and this part of town was completely empty so I could ride in the middle of the street as a couple of planes made a flyover.

I was heading for Republic’s “Not the Royal Street Party” street party in Holborn that they had not been allowed to do in Camden. Instead they were in a nice little square with a park and great atmosphere.

There was a nice crowd of people, live band, delicious food and monarch mocking.

For the size of the event there was quite a lot of press people but I guess you can only send so many reporters to talk to flag waving royalists on The Mall.

A great day for cycling as I had a lot of roads to myself and it was great fun to see the royalists and republicans celebrating a day of all things British.